


Left of Me

by mars_morpheus



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drugs, Jeremiah didn't get acid fried, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pining, Post-Laughing Toxin Jeremiah Valeska, Sad, based on "Be Nice to Me" by the Front Bottoms, because ~crusty~, because ~setting~, the bunker is still alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:27:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28685589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mars_morpheus/pseuds/mars_morpheus
Summary: The only light in the dark room was an eerie, blue glow. Bruce knew that light, and therefore he knew where he was. One word whispered through his mind.Jeremiah.
Relationships: Jeremiah Valeska/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 3
Kudos: 53





	Left of Me

Bruce's eyes opened sluggishly, body feeling strangely lazy. He was in a dark room - nearly pitch-black, but not quite. He blinked. The only light in the room was an eerie, blue glow. He knew that light, all too well, and therefore he knew where he was. One word whispered through his mind, half-prayer, half-question.

_ Jeremiah. _

He was in Jeremiah's office in the bunker, he realised as his eyes took in the way the light of the generator washed over the desk to his left. It wasn't the same. What had once been a well-organised workspace was now nothing short of a mess. Papers, many of them balled up, lay scattered across the floor. Bruce looked over to the small table on which Jeremiah kept his whiskey in its glass decanter. There it was; he noticed its low volume, and then his eyes trailed over the collection of empty bottles shoved over against the wall on the floor next to the table. His heart sank a little.

This wasn't the Jeremiah he knew. And it was all pure, unadulterated Jeremiah.

He wasn't restrained. That was odd, since he was sure Jeremiah wouldn't underestimate him in a fight. When he sat up fully, he understood the lack of physical restraints: his shoulders felt almost too heavy to lift, too weak to hold the rest of him up. He'd been drugged. He rotated to lean back against the desk and took a slow, deep breath. There was nothing to do now but wait for the drug - whatever it was - to wear off, at least enough that he could escape, and in the meantime he decided to look through the loose papers around him.

The first page he picked up was nearly illegible, especially in the dark. There was a diagram in the center of the page, half-finished, of what looked like another generator. Jeremiah's pencil had slipped across the drawing, or he'd scratched out his work. There were a number of minute tears around the edges of the page, and it was heavily wrinkled. The next page was more of the same, except the diagram was more completed. There were parts missing, though. Bruce recognised that they were some of the parts he'd had the most hand in. Angry, haphazard arrows pointed to the empty spaces. It hit him: Jeremiah didn't know what went there. He'd forgotten. Jerome's gas must have affected something in his focus or his memory or... He put down the paper and took another, this one balled up. Straightening it out revealed the beginnings of a portrait. The lines were shaky and unsure. There was a slightly-darker stain on one corner that he assumed was whiskey. He sighed and put it down. The next page was another portrait, shakier but with enough progress done that he could make out Jeremiah's features in the clumsy pencil. Eraser marks followed the lines where he'd drawn and gotten rid of glasses. The third portrait was messier, the fourth and fifth spiraling into chaos, and by the sixth Jeremiah's face was hacked out of furious strokes without meaning. His eyes seemed to glow as Bruce held the paper up between himself and the light.

One more generator diagram, and this one was more like the last portrait than the other technical drawings. A chill took hold of Bruce when he squinted to make out the words written in the spaces pointing to parts of the sketch: they weren't labels at all. Some of the words were obscured by small, round water stains, but the rest of them were an awful mix -  _ blood - gas - pick you apart - burn! - rebuild - make it new make it good _ \- worst of all,  _ Bruce. _

He felt an uncommon urge to cry.

The door opened and Bruce didn't know what he'd see. His eyes burned in the light as Jeremiah turned it on, despite its being far dimmer that he remembered. He wondered if those uncanny, pale eyes of his preferred the dark. Then he saw him.

Jeremiah hadn't looked well in the cemetery, wiping blood and makeup off his face as he revealed his insanity. He hadn't looked well at Ace Chemicals, nose bleeding, cry-laughing while Bruce pulled him up from where he'd nearly fallen into the acid below. But he'd never looked this bad. He was wearing a shiny dark-red dress shirt, bereft of the usual tie, vest, and coat. The bags under his eyes were almost painful to look at, and his red lipstick was faded and smudged. Bruce recognised the messy hair that came from a frustrated Jeremiah running his hands through it too many times. He was thinner than he had been, much thinner - too thin.

"Bruce," Jeremiah breathed as their eyes met. He looked somehow surprised to see him.

"Jeremiah." Bruce gritted his teeth (or else his voice might betray him). "What do you want?"

"I must apologise for taking you so informally from Wayne Manor." He turned his back to Bruce to pour himself a glass of whiskey. His shoulders were slumped. When was the last time he'd slept?

“You drugged me.”

His head dipped to the side. “A harmless dose. You wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

"You need help. You're not all right."

Jeremiah's lips twitched as he faced Bruce again and took a drink. "I need nothing but the one person who refuses my attentions."

"I'm not what you need."

The glass shattered. Bruce flinched, but Jeremiah only blinked and stepped gingerly over the pieces as the alcohol spread across the floor.

He knelt on the ground next to Bruce, on his left, just past the glass fragments. One shard lay glinting dangerously close to Jeremiah’s knee, and Bruce brushed it out of the way without really thinking about it.

Jeremiah’s eyes were acid green and soft as he studied Bruce’s face. His eyebrows drew together. “You look tired, Bruce. You haven’t been sleeping, have you?”

“Have you?”

That drew a smile, sad, too much like the smiles Bruce used to see before the gas. Jeremiah’s left hand moved toward him just slightly. Hesitant. He wasn’t wearing gloves like he usually did. “You need rest.”

“I can’t.” Bruce’s eyes ached to release tears, but none came. “You know I can’t. Gotham needs protection.”

“And what about you?” There was a thick silence between them, and again Jeremiah’s hand came a little closer. “You could rest here. I’d watch over you.”

“Jeremiah -”

“Bruce.” His hand brushed over Bruce’s jaw. “You are  _ exactly _ what I need, and I could be -”

“Jeremiah.” The name came out as a half whisper; he caught Jeremiah’s hand in his own. Those green eyes widened and he heard a soft intake of breath.

“I need you, Bruce. You want something to fight for, fight for me. There is so little left of me.” His thumb ran over the pulse point on Bruce’s wrist. The younger boy closed his eyes, and when he opened them Jeremiah’s eyes were close, twin moons glistening in the dim light. His voice broke. “Please.”

“You’ve hurt so many people. You’ve hurt me.”

“I…”

“You’re a killer.”

“You’re my best friend. Bruce, you are my all.”

Finally, a tear slipped down his cheek, mourning Gotham and Jeremiah and himself. “I miss you, Jeremiah.”

“I’m still here,” came the returning whisper. “I will never leave you.”

“You did. You’re not you anymore, you changed.”

“So change too,” Jeremiah begged. “You don’t have to stay the same.”

That soft, smooth voice. Bruce’s chest threatened to buckle under the force of all he felt. Their hands were clasped tight, both afraid to let go. “I can’t leave. There’s Alfred, Selina - I can’t leave them. Not like you left me.”

Jeremiah’s face tensed in a way that Bruce couldn’t be sure of. Was he sad? Or was he still nothing but jealous? He pulled their hands up to his chest, and Bruce could feel his heartbeat. “I would try, for you. To be who you want me to be.”

“I want my best friend back. I want everything to be alright.” Bruce looked up at Jeremiah through his tears. “It never will be, will it?”

Jeremiah leaned close to him, eyes fluttering shut for a second as he shook his head ever so slightly. He looked so much like himself, even pale and messy-haired. Paper rustled beneath him.

“I’m so tired, Jeremiah. I’m so tired.”

Jeremiah looked at him with a question in his eyes, and Bruce didn’t have the strength to answer. Their foreheads touched gently, almost by chance, Jeremiah’s bleached skin against Bruce’s left temple.

Jeremiah’s lips brushed against his. It was the barest hint of a kiss, all chapped skin hardly meeting at all, tears catching on the worried edges. Bruce lifted his right hand, the one not held in its own embrace, to Jeremiah’s face and felt him lean into his touch. His mind was quiet.

Jeremiah’s free hand smoothed over Bruce’s neck; he tilted his head to allow the caress. There was a prick into the vein, and when Bruce opened his eyes, betrayed, he saw a silent apology on Jeremiah’s face. Consciousness slipped out of his grasp. 

As the world went dark, he felt those red lips press against his forehead.


End file.
